[TR] Mt. Rainier - Disappointment Cleaver 6/12/2016

[Autoxfil]

Trip: Mt. Rainier - Disappointment Cleaver

 

Date: 6/12/2016

 

Trip Report:

In 2009, my sister got married to a climber (Bill). My other brother-in-law (Jesse) and I went climbing at the Gunks with him, and immediately signed up to go to Rainier. We trained and bought gear, and booked flights for July 2010. Then Bill got hit by a car while cycling, and Jesse broke hit foot playing Racquetball, so I ended up hiking Adams myself, and bailing on Glacier Peak.

 

For the last six years, we've been climbing ice and rock and alpine routes on the east coast, and got in some trips to the Grand, Mt. Meeker, and Squamish. But never Rainier. I work with a Boeing supplier and end up out here a decent bit, and every time I see Rainier from the plane, I think about getting up there again.

 

So, when work wanted to send me out in early June, and and I happened to have the weekend before free - I called up Jesse and asked if he could fly out to Seattle for a couple days. He could, and we made plans. We got out the pulleys and pickets and practiced up glacier travel, and decided on the Fuhrer Finger or maybe Kautz glacier.

 

Cascade weather rarely cooperates. Being from the East, we are familiar with this phenomenon, and had backup plans on backup plans. when we took off from Philly, I thought it was stupid that we'd packed the heavy boots, because clearly we were going to Stuart. When we landed at 10:30 on Saturday, I checked the forecast again: Sunday looked perfect, and the current conditions were just cloudy and a little rain, and some fresh snow from the night before.

 

We grabbed our crap and quickly drove to Paradise. Looking up into the mist confirmed that I didn't want to try and navigate to the Fuhrer Bivy in this soup and fresh snow. But, getting to Muir would be easy. We shouldered our packs at 3pm, and headed up into the fog:

 

 

Sometimes it was pea-soup, sometimes it cleared enough to get a photo, at least of us. Then the wind came up and pounded sleet into my ear for an hour.

 

 

But, around 10,000 feet, we popped out above it, which is my favorite thing about climbing the volcanoes.

 

 

Someone hiking down was nice enough to drop a big Gala apple on the bootpack, which I munched down.

 

 

We got to Muir around 6:30, kicked out a flat spot (shovels are heavy and I'm lazy), set up the tent, and were in bed by 8. Having woken up at 2am EST that morning, we were beat. The fact that I can wake up in my own bed in rural NE PA and go to sleep at high camp on a mountain thousands of miles away is pretty wild. The next morning, we got the forecast bluebird conditions.

 

 

After a leisurely morning around Muir, we got rolling around 5:30am. We made good time to Ingraham, and roped up. (My pack is only hanging off me like a dufus because I tossed the rope in there to get through the gap).

 

 

We made it across the Ingraham, got onto the DC, and shortened up. A party passed us, which doesn't happen to me much, so I was unhappy until I saw they were Rangers.

 

 

We got onto the upper mountain and stopped to take some selfies... of each other taking selfies.

 

 

 

It was pretty cool to see Adams, after staring out at Rainier from over there 6 years ago.

 

 

Another party who understood "Alpine Start" better than us was on the way down when one of their party slipped into a crevasse. It was a short drop and they handled it quickly and calmly. We stopped by to heckle them a bit.

 

 

Jesse is completely impervious to altitude. I am very much not. I am really fit, and lead the charge up to about 13,500, and then got hit with an AMS sledgehammer. Jesse took over the lead around there, and by 14,000 he was practically short-roping me. It had been less than 24 hours since I landed at SEATAC, so I guess I was asking for it.

 

I shuffled across the crater behind Jesse, topped out at about 11am, and did all the summit stuff that people do:

 

 

 

 

Then we crossed back over the crater and started down... just dropping a hundred feet had me feeling better, and I took the lead and literally ran down the upper slopes to thicker air.

 

 

We passed most of the other parties on the mountain in our hurry to get me down - I felt shortness of breath and fluid in my lungs, which I've never gotten before. Even with the Diamox and hydration, it seemed I pushed myself close to HAPE, which isn't to be toyed with.

 

We laid around at Muir for a bit, and then packed up and bombed down to the car, just about 24 hours after starting. As we drove off, we could see the weather window was already starting to close:

 

 

Overall it was a good trip. The DC is certainly a bit of a grind, but it's still pretty aesthetic for a walk-up (way better than Adams), and any bluebird day on a big icy peak is cool! I'm glad to have gotten to finally tick that box, and I'm sure I'll look back fondly every time I fly in and out now.

 

Thanks to everyone here for the advice over the years, and for sharing your cool mountains!

 

 

Gear Notes:

Rope, pickets and screws, beef jerky.

 

Approach Notes:

Hike up hill. Find apple. Consume.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Autoxfil

[JasonG]

So perfect. Amazing actually. The epitome of weekend warrior smash and grab. Love it!

[JasonG]

Did Bill survive the car?

[Autoxfil]

Yeah, Bill is back in action, just busy working all the time and eating lots of Oreos.

[PuckerJunkie]

Nice work! Looks like you had perfect conditions!

 

Shameless conditions request:

 

How broken up is the Ingraham and upper mountain? Were there any bridges you wouldn't cross un-roped?

[Autoxfil]

It was pretty much all step-across and end-runs. There were a couple "saggers" that were not obvious. I would solo it personally, but you would just need to be real heads-up. In general, the guide services really do a killer job of setting a safe route.

 

I'm also very inexperienced on glaciers. Maybe dont trust my take on conditons.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Autoxfil

[JasonG]

It's usually not the bridges you see that will get you. After falling in a hidden 'shrund unroped ~10 years ago I pretty much always rope up crossing crevassed terrain. Partially because I have dependents now, and partially because I saw (vividly) how it would be to die that way.

 

I got a second chance, but many aren't so lucky

[The Cascade Kid]

When I read that line about dropping a big gala apple, I immediately thought that was some clever way of saying that someone took a dump in the bootpack. Then you ate it, and I felt differently about my initial impression.

[PuckerJunkie]

It's usually not the bridges you see that will get you.

 

Yes, I know this to be good advice. I am probably just too dumb to follow it.

[cjm84]

Nice! Thanks for the TR. Went up the DC last week and got some nice racoon eye tan lines and sun burn. Gotta love the variable weather around here.

 

As for conditions ... on 5 june there was a large crevasse opening up around the flats before you hit the DC. The guide services had a ladder cached there, but it wasn't in use yet. On the upper mountain above the DC I remember end running 2 large crevasses and crossing the bergschrund on a well traveled snow bridge. Everything is well wanded and marked by the guide services.

 

Here is one of the crevasses opening up on the upper mountain:

 

This was the snow bridge area near the schrund: